In law enforcement and emergency medical situations, it is often necessary for the removal or extrication of persons from an area. Examples of these situations include passive demonstrations, strike situations, and the like, where the arrest and/or removal of persons from particular premises is desired. In such situations, there is often required a number of law enforcement or emergency medical personnel to move such demonstrators, even if virtually no resistance is met. Such procedures can be time consuming, labor and personnel intensive, and physically demanding for those involved.
There have been a number of stretcher and stretcher-type devices available over the years for various applications. For example, a break-away stretcher and extrication device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,921,231, which issued to Elroy E. Bourgraf et al. While the foldable chair and break-away stretcher structures shown and disclosed in the Bourgraf et al. patent are extremely helpful in a wide variety of immobilization, extrication and/or transportation situations, their design is more applicable to critically injured persons requiring immobilization and extrication from accident situations and the like.
Similarly, the stretcher and stretcher chairs shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 677,673 (Mahan) and 3,271,796 (Dillman) provide other examples of medically-related structures including immobilization and/or restraint-type straps and the like. Additional carrying devices include those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. Re. 28,620 (Jordon et al.) and 1,903,536 (Skinner). While each of these devices certainly has applicability for restraint and movement of medical patients and accident victims, their application in the situations contemplated herein are no better than the multitude of other medical stretchers, gurneys, cots and the like which have been available in various forms over the years.
Consequently, heretofore there has not been available a relatively simple, light-weight and adaptable structure designed to accommodate and restrain persons who have been arrested and/or who need to be removed from a location, such as passive demonstrators and the like. Most of the structures mentioned above, and others which have been known and/or available in the industry, require a plurality of medical and/or law enforcement personnel for their proper use. Moreover, many of these devices are relatively complex, expensive, and cumbersome for storage and transportation to a demonstration site or the like. There was not available a device designed to accommodate a person in substantially seated position, and, most likely, with their hands bound behind their backs, and which could be easily utilized to extricate a person from a substantially prone position.